On the Monday edition of CNN International's Amanpour on PBS, it was a night of all liberal guests who were given an unchallenged forum to push their views against President Donald Trump and Republicans. After starting off with Planned Parenthood's Cecile Richards, host Christiane Amanpour moved to a segment with E.J. Dionne and Norman Ornstein to discuss DACA, with the guests bemoaning "radically conservative elements" and "hardliners" in the White House.
The CNN International host accepted their premises and went on to complain that an ad released by the Trump campaign that hit Democrats over illegal immigrants committing crimes was a "pretty shocking" ad.
During his analysis, Dionne -- who is also an MSNBC contributor -- fretted over "right-wing members" of the Trump administration advising him to reject the first deal on extending DACA, and then complained that "the Republican party is now enthralled to some very radically conservative elements who, when the crutch comes, win out. And that's a real problem for the country."
After Ornstein had his turn to pile on by arguing that Trump is in reality not good at negotiating outside of real estate, Amanpour followed up by accepting Dionne's complaints about conservatives in the White House whom she referred to as "hardliners." Amanpour: "So how is it that he has -- as you've said -- gotten hijacked by the hardliners on this?"
After bemoaning that "the disturbing thing about the shutdown is that the Republicans went much closer to embracing a kind of pure nativist position than they have before," Dionne suggested that Republicans had previously not viewed "Dreamers" as illegal immigrants until the current debate, as he added, "and suddenly, once the fight started, the 'Dreamers' became 'illegal immigrants,' and no Republican -- very few Republicans -- stood up and condemned that outrageous ad saying Democrats would be responsible for murders committed by immigrants."
In reality, Republicans have for the most part long realized that -- even though illegal immigrants who were brought into the country as children deserve some level of sympathy -- the circumstances of how their situation developed are a symptom of a major problem that also deserves attention to limit such problems occurring again in the future.
Amanpour accepted Dionne's premises and further commented on the ad being "shocking" as she responded: "You're talking about the one that the campaign to reelect the President has put out called 'complicit,' and it is pretty shocking."
She then went back to Ornstein and quoted Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer as complaining that negotiating with President Trump is "like negotiating with jello."
